The Annotated Bobblehead Justice David H. Souter

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David H. Souter, 1990-2009

David Souter was born in Melrose, Massachusetts, in 1939. The son of a banker and homemaker, Souter moved to his grandparents' farmhouse in Weare, Massachusetts, upon their deaths. He majored in philosophy at Harvard and wrote his senior thesis on the jurisprudence of Oliver Wendell Holmes. After graduating magna cum laude in 1961, Souter attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. He returned to Harvard Law School and graduated in 1966. After two years of private practice, he became New Hampshire's Assistant Attorney General in 1968, Deputy Attorney General in 1971, and Attorney General in 1975. In 1978, he was appointed to the New Hampshire Superior Court as an associate justice, and rose to the New Hampshire Supreme Court in 1983. Souter had served on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit only three months when he was nominated to replace Justice William Brennan on the United States Supreme Court by President George H.W. Bush in 1990. Souter was confirmed by the Senate, 90-9.